Gala prep: We follow Toronto glamour gal Amy Burstyn-Fritz before the debut of her custom-designed Kaelen dress

by Randi Bergman October 24, 2013

Amy Burstyn Fritz Operanation Dress Kaelen — Photography by Stefania Yarhi

See the process and fitting photos »

If you’ve ever been on this site before, you’ll know that we party. A lot. Especially during the fall months, event calendars seem to be constantly brimming with one glitzy invitation after the next. And while attending an event seems straightforward enough, looking good at said event proves a little more challenging. Someone who knows a thing or two about the constant need to look fabulous is Amy Burstyn-Fritz, director at Knot PR and all around glamour gal. Year round, Burstyn-Fritz seems to flit around gala to gala in one A+ look after another. We’re always fairly astounded at her consistent chicness, which is why we went behind the scenes with her as she preps for Operanation, an annual gala she co-chairs benefitting the Canadian Opera Company which takes place tonight.

Burstyn-Fritz one-upped herself this time, enlisting long time pal turned client, New-York-based designer Kaelen, to create something unique to wear at the night’s event. “I wanted to work with the [event’s] theme of ‘temptation,’ but not be too literal,” says the designer. To whit, the dress is something wholly unique, featuring a masterful cloud-inspired dye job created by dye artist Audrey Louise Reynolds made of sumac, wood, iris roots, boiled carob and squid ink. (It dried in sage and rose quartz bundles.) For real.

“Working with Kaelen was a natural fit–she is a true artist and I trust her creative judgment which made the design process so fun,” says Burstyn-Fritz. “She walked me through the sketches, the fabric and lace options, the dye process, and even at one point sent a muslin from New York to Toronto for me to faux fit that looked like a full on space suit.”

When Burstyn-Fritz finally got to try on her dress IRL at a fitting this week at Toronto’s Hazelton Hotel, we were first hand witness to it looking nothing like a space suit. In fact, it was extraordinary.